Audley Dean Nicols (1875-1941)
an El Paso, Texas artist began his art studies at the Art Students League &
Metropolitan Art Club in New York
studying under Kenyon Cox, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Henry Siddons Mowbrey and
later in
Europe.

Audley Dean Nicols while living in Pittsburg began visiting El Paso and the
Southwestern states c1914 spending Summer months in El Paso, Texas and
Southern Arizona painting desert scenes before moving to El Paso in 1919
with his new bride Mary Mahoney. His
early life was
spent in New York, Pittsburg & Sewickley, Pa. He illustrated for McClure's, Cosmopolitan,
Collier's and other well known magazines. He has painted portraits and some
of his family in meticulous detail and scenes for illustration, but feels
that the desert landscape painting finds expression for not only his
art but love of nature and life. While in El Paso, he painted desert scenes
and canyons
of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Nicols desert landscapes were the
first which pictured the spectacular light, the changing color and the bare
mountains which take hold of all "tenderfeet" who come to the desert.
He wrote in the Sewickley Herald in 1916 an article stating "The desert
is everything but gray. There are clean fresh blues, pinks and yellows
in the skys, opalescent purple, rose and lavender in the ever-present
distant mountains, reds and yellows in the rock & earth, but never
gray." Nicols desert scenes were displayed at Pittsburg's Wunderly
Gallery in 1915. After moving to El Paso, his works were exhibited
mainly in the El Paso area and the Collins Art Shop in San Antonio.

Audley Dean Nicols came to the
Southwest as he was tired of painting lush Eastern Landscapes. The sand,
sagebrush and the blue Mountains of the Southwest caught his imagination. The
first few seasons in Arizona he went alone deep into the desert and
camped for weeks. He wanted to personally feel the heat of the day and
the cold of the night so he could get this effect and feelings on
canvas.

Nicols liked the climate of the
desert so much he decided to stay. He built his house in El Paso at the
foothill of the Franklin Mountains. His house was in the desert and the
city of El Paso expanded to his door.

His paintings were in high demand and
bringing high prices for paintings in which he immortalized "Ship of the
Desert", "Superstition Mountain", "Signal Peak", "Cave Creek in
Chiricahua Mountains". His first sale of a desert landscape was sold to
C.W. Post in Chicago, the founder of Post Cereal.

During the years his paintings were
in demand, interest in the artist was keen. Mr. Nicols remained a
mystery except to a few close friends to whom he loved to exchange
stories of the Southwest. One of those friends was General Robert L.
Howze, Commander of Fort Bliss.

Nicols never gave an interview. He
never solicited an order and never duplicated paintings. In 1927/1930 from
sales records, his paintings measuring 14x22 sold at
between $250 to $500 each at Collins Art Shop in San Antonio, Texas. A large amount for that period of time.

Nicols won awards in all three of the Davis
Competitions in the late 20's at the Witte Museum in San Antonio.